people wont know that if they have never rvred which most havent

who asks whats different to attack thane or healer cant be a good player ^^
so you cant give just bad players advices

the question was not " what s the difference to attack thane or healer?" but " what's the difference between a thane and a healer?"

it's impressiv to see that somebody can be 50 and even don't know a bit what classes exist

Albs can work acceptably when a PROPER group is built with good players. Unlike mid and hib, you can't just grab a couple of random supporters and add whatever tanks are standing around the PK and expect to win. It doesn't work that way. Alb on Uthgard has too many players playing the wrong classes (wizards, friars, mercs, reavers etc) or the wrong specs (wind spec theurgs, pole spec armsmen) to be truly successful in this rvr enviornment.

I'm just as guilty in this...my main here is a merc, which is the WRONG melee class for this server, but, I am able to recognize its the wrong class and move on. Why is it the wrong class? Well my dps when I am diseased and kited is terrible. With disease on, I can't catch up to my targets to hit them. It's pretty simple. Same for reavers. The RIGHT answer is to play 2h armsmen which can spam their back snare on a running target and watch them go nowhere. why 2h and not pole? Pole's anytime snare is .45 growthrate, and doesn't last as long. The back style with no snare is only .70 growth rate. The back snare in the 2h line is .85 growth rate (IIRC) and the snare last 22 seconds. So, against a running target, you will do more damage with 2h spamming a back snare then you can with any other damage rear damage option short of a merc, BUT you are chain snaring them so they can't kite you like they do a merc. Also don't forget that melee CC (snares and stuns) are NOT affected by det. You get the full duration out of it, provided some caster (casters on live who root get yelled at...here casters hand out immunity all the time) hasn't rooted them to give them an immunity timer. It's pretty simple math to me, but most armsmen who are specced pole don't want to believe it.

Also, many players here tend to ignore the strengths of the characters they do have. For example, most players I have seen here immediately purge a mez. They should SAVE purge and let their sorc demez for them. Its the sorc's JOB to demez them, and if purge were available when they get rooted later (which they shouldn't but enemies who root us do us a favor by giving us an immunity timer). That's just one example. Then there are the people who think their class is supposed to dps only (wind theurgs, body cabs). They should be petting enemy casters/support to keep them inturrpted. They won't do that though, they are speccing 45 wind by golly, and they are going to put out some stun pets and nuke the crap out of things. Well, that isn't their role.

As for the whole not going out back thing, frankly that's smart of the albs. For the most part, the groups I have seen of albs here don't stand a snowball's chance of winning anyways, so why make their enemies stronger by feeding them rps. That's all they are doing is being RP cows by going back out. Build a better group and use the correct tactics and Albs would be fine. Since they don't do that, might as well not bother going out at all unless there is a decent alb zerg to go with.

The last thing is, many of the established players here aren't willing to listen to new ideas. I'm sure that some alb is going to tell me how wrong I am in everything that I posted. I know this because I have had this conversation before. They all know better then me. Well, I've got 2 RR8, a RR5 and a bunch of other lower rr alts that I have played for over 7 million rps of experience on live....most of it in old frontiers before rps became easy mode. That's a lot of time in rvr to get a feel for how it works, and to learn tactics and more importantly how to ADAPT to what the enemies are doing. But that's ok, the Albs who want to think they have it all figured out when its plain to see by their success rate that they DON'T have it all figured out can keep going out there and getting farmed by the hibs and mids. I refuse to be frustrated, by getting farmed, and will level something better to use then my merc, and wait for my guildies to build a group.

Aerewyn

merc "is the WRONG melee class for this server" .....

Merco is best melee damage dealer on albion , maybe an armsman 2H is a good choice but merco or reaver is not the WRONG melee class ( as you said) .

I don t understand if you meant wizards, friars, mercs, reavers are bad classes or if you meant ppl play badly this classes ?


PS : i love my friar , and this classe isn t useless. ;)

there are different way to play... and i am not sure that to put one armsman/ enemy and snare them to dead will be successful.

i still think you have to insta kill one important enemy and after albion should win on a long time thanks to defensiv abilities...

and to insta kill an enemy you need an assist train with main dammage all at the same moment. and there are different way to do. one that is effectiv is stun-TWF-debuff cold- assist leviathan/casters (insta charges)/ dammage dealer on the target... he should die very quickly.

i still think armsman is the worst dammage dealer ( at least on uthgard, i never played on live and there is no real relation between live rvr and uthgard rvr). i know too that root is a pain and there are no immunity to dammage snare.

there are true things in what you say, but there are some things i can't agree with.

you need a friar too in a group, that's very important. i see the difference in group with or without shaolin. a 3d heal power and resists to dammage spells will make the difference.( and you wont be kited with disease )

but sure i think that albion players who go and go again to take a tower and give 10KRP /group/ death helped a lot the other realms to ding quickly 5L0+

hmm

I dont like armsmans i love the mercs because they ARE the best dmg dealer of albion but u need to use em perfectly... so i u do 8vs8 u have 2 or maybe 3 mercs in ur grp. And u got the nice feature called theurg, the theurg is one of the hardest and most skill needed classes in Daoc, u have to know when ur time is to spam ur pets, for example hib/mid at attacks sorc, sorc kites em and gets heal of clerics then when u are free as theurg and get ur 30 secs u give all healers / bards / wardens 2 earth pets and one ice pet if u get more time 2 icepets. Thats the time for the mercs to change target on a enemy offtank best choices are zerkers or Blademasters. Now the enemy grp has a big problem : PET ATTACK!

They need to react on the pets and cause of the fact that ur mercs are most of the times kited by some asshole shamans ^^ go for the dmg dealer the healers can only heal with instants cause they have pet attack maybe its now time for a qc mezz on the supporter of the enemy..

just one method to fight against mid / hib wich was really succesfully with our old AV grp .. on the beginning it seems like the mids/hibs win but after the theurg made his pet attack we got advantages ...

Mercs and reavers do NO damage at all when they are diseased and their target is endo sprinting. Vs hibs, the damage is acceptable, but mids nearly always seem to have disease. Disease has a snare component on it in addition to cutting heals in half and lowering str/con. Hibs can be beat with current melee set-ups, provided that someone inturrupts the enemy healers. Very rarely have I seen albs here inturrupt very well. On live, we used ice/earth spec pets for this....the theurg's job was to lock down enemy support while either the melee or magic assist train (most of the best Alb groups were heavy caster based and only used a 2h paladin to peel with snare styles and allow effective kiting). A debuff caster train can drop people quick-fast, and there is very little most healers can do about it.

Anyway, with the disease on (hooray for insta cast ae disease on shamans), a merc/reaver has no way to keep any target attempting to kite from getting out of melee range. Once that target is out of melee range, their DPS goes from very impressive to non-existant. A 2h arms deals SLIGHTLY slower dps, but it's consistant and there is very little an enemy can do to get away once you are on them, even if you are diseased. Plus, you can hybrid spec for slam if you think you need it, unlike a paladin.

For the record, I hate pole spec armsmen. I'd rather group just about anything else. I can't think of very much that is more completely useless in a group. The line has very little utility, and on Uthgard, the damage is not very good (yes you hit hard, but very slow. DPS is over time) when compared to mercs, 2h, or reavers.

So, in conclusion, yes mercs are the best damage dealers...when they can hit their targets...on Uthgard for Alb in melee. It's being able to hit their targets consistently that's a problem. Vs hibs it's not so bad. Vs mids, it can be a problem. 2h arms is good damage, all the time. Check the growth rates on those styles if you don't believe me, you'll see that 2h is actually a better group option then you are used to seeing from polearm spec armsmen. Trust me, I'd much rather play a merc then an armsman...that's why I rolled a merc here, that's why I leveled on on live and played it. It's my favorite melee class in the game. I simply don't believe its the best choice from what I have seen of RvR here.

"I don t understand if you meant wizards, friars, mercs, reavers are bad classes or if you meant ppl play badly this classes ?"

No, they are good classes, but for different situations. Wizards are great in keep defense. Mercs and reavers are two of the very best 1v1 classes in the game. On this server (no buffbots), a solo friar should be nearly unstoppable. I speak for mostly open field 8v8 fights, as that is where my experience is mainly. To be a truly effective in open field 8v8, an Alb group needs to min-max their abilities and work together very well. If a group is not picky about what classes they have in the group, they are inherently weaker because alb abilities are spread out between so many classes.

I suppose though rather then say things like "mercs with disease on do no damage because they can't catch their targets", perhaps I should say "enemy disease is a problem. I suggest countering it by using a 2h arms assist train to chain snare, and stop enemies from outrunning the dps train"

Aerewyn

I came from live as well and posted much earlier in this thread regarding the sick degree of tunnel vision players here demonstrate.

Just posting to say I know exactly what Aerewyn is stating from live.....all to true when it comes to Uthgard.


( Not quoting that novel )

[ quote Aerewyn ] Insert facts here.

I have played 2h armsman and i liked it more than pole, but "people" start compare u to paladin without chants, because your dmg is littlebit lower than with pole spec. So that means u dont get a group spot where u would get it when u were pole one...and this is real example

The "fact" that 2h does less damage then pole is a myth. Pole swings slower, so by necessity each hit is higher. 2h weapons are slightly faster, thus each hit is slightly smaller. Both styles have comparable base dps, so you have to look at the growth rates of the styles. The ONLY style that Pole has that has a higher growth rate then 2h is Defender's Rage, which IIRC on Uthgard is usable when your enemy styles. Druids and healers don't style, so in a group an armsman will rarely be using this style....it would only be used when hitting enemy tanks.

The way it works is over say a minute a pole hits 10 times for 25 damage each for a total of 250 damage (numbers made up to illustrate the point...obviously these are not real damage numbers). 2h is faster, and swings 15 times for 16 or 17 each for ~250 damage. Over time, the damage is the same, but when players look at the pole hit and see that it hits for 25 and 2h hits for only 16 or 17, they THINK that pole does more damage. If they were to actually parse their damage logs, they would see that the faster hits by 2h equalize the damage. The better growthrates from the rear quadrant could actually push 2h damage over the top pf pole OVER TIME in a fight where people tried to run from them.

So while many people may THINK you are a paladin without chants, they'd be wrong. Remember, paladins are also on a lower weapon skill and damage table then armsmen are because they are hybrids. That means that your weapon skill is higher and your dps is higher with a 2h armsman then it is with a 2h paladin.

But, perception is reality, which is why theurgs all spec 45 wind, arms spec poles (and aren't wanted in groups regardless). People do what they believe, but what they believe is not always correct. That's the case with 2h. People believe that pole has better damage, but that's simply not true. That's part of the reason for my post to put out information for people to at least think about. Many of the things they believe to be "truths" are in fact not true at all.

Aerewyn

Aerewyn, I'm not on Albion, but maybe you could try to build your own group with what you think is right.

If you succeed in beating hib and mid groups the other albs can't defeat, it will proove you're right.

just because one setup is working he cant proove that that is better then the others

i know how to beat perfect mid grps like Reichswaechter + edn or Hib grps like BA or MB, i guess they can say that too that AV kicked ass even against pbaoe disease without 2 hand armsman

I dont say that ur setup wont work i just say that there are more ways to kill enemys like killing the tanks first or use ur RA`s like charge to get a shaman down

theres not just one way.

Sounds hard, but as long as Albion doesnt learn how to play together , they wont beat any players with a bit skill...

Sure the right Setup is required, but as long as they dont have a strategy and some Players , who play together for some time, they wont have any chances...

why is the thread still open ? i don´t get what you want to accomplish with this ... seriously.

it´s nobody´s fault that you need less classes to get the same utility in mid/hib . it was designed like that and nobody will change it.

nobody is complaining that alb is the easy pve mode or did you see any thread about that ?

the game is designed to build a group and thats what you are supposed to do . if everyone just wants to play the "i hit for 450+" guy and nobody wants to play the "i heal for 450+guy" and you constantly get raped by the oversupported other realms don´t blame the balance.

either grab a couple of half descent players with the right classes and play some time together or let it be.the other realms do the same - so why can´t alb build groups ?

and if you are sick of the other ppl just pick one of the incredible solo classes alb has to offer - there are plenty and have fun on your own.